Behan's 1958 autobiographical novel Borstal Boy vividly portrayed his time as a teenager in Borstal in Suffolk. Adapted for the stage, the play Borstal Boy brings to life Behan's formidable wit and the magic of his writing.

Arrested in 1939 on the day he landed in Liverpool with a load of explosives and an unauthorized plan to blow up Liverpool docks, sixteen year old IRA member Brendan Behan spent three years in an English Borstal.

Following another spell in prison (this time Mountjoy) for further Republican activities, Behan wrote; and his plays, novels and poems established Behan as one of the leading Irish writers of his generation.

The first production of Borstal Boy in the Abbey was produced by Tomas McAnna and won a New York Drama Critics' Circle Award and Tony Award when on Broadway in 1970. The other production by Joe Dowling was staged in the Gaiety Theatre.

"I have never seen a situation so dismal that a policeman couldn't make it worse." Brendan Behan